~ Rambling and dabbling in books of all sorts.

The Weird Sisters, Eleanor Brown

From the prologue: We came home because we were failures. We wouldn’t admit that, of course, not at first, not to ourselves, and certainly not to anyone else. We said we came home because our mother was ill, because we needed a break, a momentary pause before setting off for The Next Big Thing. But the truth was, we had failed, and rather than let anyone else know, we crafted careful excuses and alibis, and wrapped them around ourselves like a cloak to keep out the cold truth. The first stage: denial.

When their mother gets cancer, the three Andreas sisters return home: Rose, the shy homebody eldest sister, can’t seem to leave her hometown for the man she loves, the glamorous Bean or Bianca comes home from New York City, and the youngest Cordy suddenly resurfaces. The Andreas family is kind of eccentric: they love books and TV is something that other families watch. Their father is a Shakespeare scholar and communicates using Shakespeare almost all the time. Even the three sisters are named after Shakespearean characters. They are all grappling with their problems and trying to come to terms with their relationship towards each other. And meanwhile, their mother is very ill and Cordy is pregnant.

The narration of The Weird Sisters was very interesting. It was really narrated by all three sisters at the same time. No “I’s” or “me’s” are every used; instead “our’s” and “we’s”. It was a bit confusing, but effective. It really emphasizes the way the sisters are connected, though they may seem different and not always get along. As it says on the cover, “See, we love each other. We just don’t happen to like each other very much.” This isn’t really my favorite type of fiction: family relationships and problems, but it was an enjoyable read.